


Snapshots

by Tabakat



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 19:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17290289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabakat/pseuds/Tabakat
Summary: Summary: Ianto finds an old wedding picture; it holds surprising insight for some of the team and perhaps closure for another.Spoilers for 1.08 Out of time if you have not seen that episode this will not make sense!





	Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: [info]andreth47 or on insane journal [info]andreth_47  
> Fandom: Torchwood  
> Pairing: General, None  
> Spoilers: All of Season 2 but especially episode 1.8 Out of Time. If you have not seen this episode, this will not make sense!!  
> Word Count: 847  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood. I am not affiliated with them in any way. I make no money of this or claim any copyright. Simply a work of fannish fun.

Ianto Jones clicked on the picture; disbelieving what he saw, he typed a few more keys quickly enhancing and digitally cleaning the old scarred photo. “No, oh Jack, no,” he whispered. As the cog air-lock rolled back, Ianto quickly noted the file number on the image and closed it down, rolling away from Toshiko’s desk.

“Ianto?” Owen asked seeing the look on his face, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Just looking at some old photos. Tosh’s imaging software saves me hours in the archives.” 

“Find anything interesting?” Jack asked.

“You could say that.” 

“Come on Ianto, what’d you find? It’s just grainy old photos!”

“Really Gwen, there’s nothing to tell.” Ianto insisted.

“Leave off, Gwen--it’s all secrets and need to know when he gets like this,” Owen said.

“It’s nothing but a misfiled photo, found in the archival debris left over from Canary Wharf. Now if that’s all I have a job to do.” Okay so the mention of Canary Wharf was a low blow, but it shut the team up. Tosh, bless her, redirected the team, teaching Gwen with a light jab at himself, but Ianto didn’t mind. He was more concerned with finding the actual hard copy of the scan, and getting to the bottom of it.

“Photos tell a wealth of stories, Gwen. They’re memories and secrets; the simplest and best time capsule man has created. ” Tosh said. “Secrets and memories are the stock and trade of the Torchwood archives--and Ianto is their gatekeeper.

The team looked at Tosh in shock and Ianto took the exit she gave him, and quickly took himself off to the request aisle in the archives. Trying to hide his tracks from Tosh on her own computer would be foolhardy, so he would just trust to her discretion.  
~~~

Ianto wasn’t surprised to hear Jack coming up the aisle behind him. “What’s bothering you Ian?” Jack didn’t bother to ask who the picture was of; this whole section of the archives was devoted solely to one Torchwood employee after all.

“Did you know?” Ianto said holding up an old wedding picture of Jack’s.

“I assume you mean did I know she had had a relationship with Owen when I married her?”

“Yes.”

“Yes-”

“Jack how COULD you!”

“And no. My timeline has never been linear Ianto, but when I met Anna,-that’s what she called herself then- it was about as straight as it ever got. The Doctor had left me stranded, with no working time-manipulator--and Earth tech even with Torchwood hadn’t gotten that far. So, I hadn’t meant Owen yet--wouldn’t for years. She talked of Owen a lot. That she had met a man who worked for an interesting branch of the British intelligence, and that he had left quite a mark on her.” 

Jack smiled at this, remembering how he had figured out just what ‘branch’ she was talking about and decided it was better to leave her with her conceptions of Torchwood. 

“She never did let much else slip, once said Owen had a friend I reminded her of, but that was it. We had a happy life. Both of us were a bit in the way of misfits. She was too forward for her time, even then, but it was hardly something that bothered me! I was still a little messed up, I can’t imagine many who weren’t, but she didn’t let on it bothered her. There were no children. She didn’t want any, but she did do some work helping out at the orphanages—usually with the older girls. The ones nobody wanted, helping to get them on their feet. She was happy.”

“Why can’t we find anything of her?”

“Changed her name, she didn’t come back into her time, as you can see, knew enough even then not to mess with timelines.”

“That must have hurt, not interacting with her family.”

“I imagine it did. She didn’t talk about it. Didn’t let on. Anna would have made a good operative, but she deserved better. She’d had enough of service to her country and death.”

“Can’t we tell him? Not that you married her obviously, but everything else?”

“And the photo?”

“It’ll be what I found in the debris, Diane’s wedding photo, as for the groom, well the ‘wedding fairies’ can Photoshop that, it’s an easy fix really. You said you had no children? Did you take many photos together?”

“Not that scream couple- not that Owen’s likely to find them.”

“Good; lock yours up. Tosh and I will change the authorization locks on these files and we’ll give Owen some closure.”

“You’re a good friend Ian, I should have thought of this. I’m just too used to secrets.”

“Torchwood does that to you, besides you can’t think of everything, Jack. That’s why Torchwood is a team.” Ianto replaced the picture, locked the cabinet marked 1953, and texted Tosh. 

_Ianto:  
Project: Snapshot Retouch. Present for a cranky old puss. Feel like playing digital wedding fairy?  
Tosh:  
You saw it? Sounds interesting do tell. My place say 7? I’ll even make the coffee._

Finish


End file.
